I used to be a sceptic about the ‘technological singularity’, the idea that we are on the verge of creating machines so unimaginably intelligent that human history will enter a wholly new and unfathomable phase. My scepticism stemmed largely from the quasi-religious awe that surrounds the idea. Like the mysterious black monolith in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the singularity is a blankness onto which adherents project primordial fantasies of immortality and omnipotence, heaven and hell.